Monday, 20 January 2025

Wolf Man










Daddyshack

Wolf Man
Directed by Leigh Whannell
USA 2025
Universal Pictures/Blumhouse
UK Cinema Release Print.


Wolf Man is yet another attempt to reboot one of the classic Universal horror properties of the 1930s and 40s. Something which I feel the company has been very successful with on a creative level for the last ten years or so but, alas, the box office mostly tells a different story. Now I had high hopes for this latest take on The Wolfman (the original 1941 version plus the remake reviewed by me here) because this director had made a very interesting spin on The Invisible Man not so long ago (reviewed here) but two things made me drastically lower my expectations.

Firstly, from the look of the trailer, the new wolfman really isn’t all that hairy and, yeah, he really isn’t in the film either, truth be told. Secondly, the film has been getting bad reviews so far (apart from some people I overheard leaving the cinema who absolutely loved it... it wasn’t a well attended screening but you could hear a pin drop in that room for the majority of the movie) and I wasn’t expecting too much by the time I walked down to my local Cineworld to see it. As it turns out, though, this movie had me gripped from pretty much the start. There are a few minor problems such as the pacing (which I’ll get to in a minute) but all in all I was absolutely under the spell of the film, it has to be said.

Now, it also has to be said, if you are going to go in there expecting a loving homage to the original Universal monsters movie then you are going to be somewhat let down. There are no Maria Ouspenskaya references. There are no Lawrence Talbot jokes... not even his iconic cane is in this one (even though that’s reared its silver head a few times in movies in recent years). There is one small reference to legendary Universal monster make-up man Jack Pearce, who of course did the iconic make up on the 1941 original and, possibly one other small reference to that movie which I’ll get to in a little while. So don’t go in expecting something which includes the original because, this movie isn’t it.

It is, however, well shot, beautifully framed in places, all done with practical effects other than CGI (which I honestly didn’t notice so, yeah, it looks great) and the acting is strong... although a little out of kilter...

Okay, a family consisting of Blake (played by Christopher Abbott), his wife Charlotte (played by Julia Garner) and their young daughter Ginger (played by Matilda Firth) - an obvious Ginger Snaps reference - go to clear out a shack in a remote forest location after Blake’s dad is finally, after many years, declared dead. They then confront, head on, the werewolf legend of the area (although I don’t think it’s ever once referred to as a werewolf) and they have to survive to the end of the movie if they can (it’s easy to guess who does, from not very far in).

Now, there’s all the clichés set up such as Ginger being very much a daddy’s girl, leaving the movie to bring in the idea that she bonds more with the mother during the trauma of the story... and the thing about Blake’s father giving him a very strict upbringing which he tries to never spill down onto his daughter, which gets challenged later on. The film starts with a really great, somewhat extended cold opening of the young Blake and his father confronting a creature in the woods and then jumping 30 years forward to the present, where the first twenty or so minutes sets up the stuff I’ve outlined in the sentence before. And then a curious thing happens where, much like a modern Patricia Cornwell novel, the whole rest of the movie takes place in just a small period of time amounting to hours rather than days.

So it’s all set in the night of the evening the family arrive at the father’s old house. Everything therefore feels a little compressed and a slight weakness of the film means it all feels rushed and the various, calamitous story beats and the characters’ reactions to them will almost certainly prompt an audience response of... “well that escalated quickly”. 

 The other thing which seems a little odd is Julia Garner’s performance as the mother. She’s playing the character in a very... well, muffled way. Everything is very understated and almost emotionless. It’s good though in the fact that she isn’t completely going insane, externally at least, to the events that follow and it serves the purpose of giving the ‘survival mode’ elements of the characters a certain credibility... but I think people may find it odd (even though it’s an excellent performance, just an unconventional choice).

However, the film is certainly fast and furious and has some really nice ideas. Such as the sound and vision moments from the point of view of the main werewolf character as the changes take place in his body... not being able to understand the rest of the family (nor they him) and with a wonderful visual change which, amazingly, the director was able to achieve in camera on set (the film switches seamlessly within the same shot as the camera moves to give some quite innovative visual viewpoint changes done in real time). Added to this we have some revved up sound design which really helps maintain the sense of urgency and fright in the movie and, to top it off, a very loud and cacophonous score by Benjamin Wallfisch which is absolutely terrifying in its own right and, man am I angry this thing has not been given a proper CD release (I don’t go with buying digital air so it means I won’t get to listen to it away fro the movie at any point... unless some bright spark decides to put an isolated score on the Blu Ray).

So, yeah, all I can say is, even though I’m a big admirer of the original Universal monster movies, I really loved this much different take on the idea and, if people can get over their expectations and let their guard down on that stuff, I think they will have a pretty good time of it. Oh, and that one other thing it possibly has in common with the original 1941 production? Well, despite its reliance on the full moon, the original doesn’t contain one shot of the moon in it, if memory serves and, unless I missed it somehow in this new version, this one doesn’t either (although it’s clearly on the poster so maybe I missed it)... which makes more sense since the lycanthropic state in this one is passed purely through a viral infection and not bound to changes between human and wolf like status on cycles of the moon like the original (once you’re a beast you stay a beast, in other words). But yeah, don’t take my word for it... go see Wolf Man, It needs some better word-of-mouth to combat the words of the critics, I fear.

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